This content challenges the common low-carb narrative by comparing two ancestral tribes: the high-fat, low-carb Maasai and the high-carb, low-fat Chimane, revealing that the high-carb consuming Chimane exhibit significantly better cardiovascular health.
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And the Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
>> The Messiah.
[Music]
>> Low carb influencers love pointing to
the Messiah, an ancestral tribe that ate
a high-fat diet of milk, meat, and blood
as proof that our ancestors thrived on
low carb diets. Messiah eating mostly
meat, mostly dairy, mostly blood from
their cattle, if not exclusively. and
and they found that the the Messiah were
much much healthier.
>> The thing is they never show you the
other ancestral tribes like the Chimane.
When you compare the Messiah to the
Chaman who eat almost the exact opposite
diet of fruits, roots, and vegetable as
well as wild game, the whole low carb
ancestral narrative starts to look very
different. And when you take things even
one step further and you look at the
different metabolic markers between the
two groups based on published data that
we have activity levels and their
cardiovascular data, you start to see a
pattern that very few people in the low
carb nutrition world talk about.
In today's video, I'm going to show you
the dietary differences between the
Messiah and the Chaman. One, extremely
high in fat and the other extremely high
in carbs. two, how each tribe's health
outcomes compare, especially when it
comes to blood pressure, cholesterol,
and cardiovascular health. And three,
the practical lessons that you can use
to build a diet that's specific to your
metabolic needs. Now, before we get
started, much of the work that I do
helping people to cut through the
conflicting nutrition advice starts with
understanding which foods support your
individual physiology. To make that
easier, I created a free protetabolic
diet calculator and food guide that
helps you to build a diet tailored to
your unique needs. You can grab it using
the link in the description. All right,
to start off here with this comparison,
I want to look at the Messiah first. So,
we're going to take a look at the
Messiah, the population that was
studied, their diet, their physical
characteristics, and then we're going to
see their cardiovascular results. And
then we're going to do the same thing
for the Chamani. And then we're going to
compare the two different outcomes and
see how they actually look. this really
highfat versus this really high carb
dietary setup. So the Messiah data we
have is older data from a researcher his
name is George man and George man's
papers come from 1972. Now the thing to
keep in mind with this comparison and to
be fair is that George man's data is
autopsy studies. So they looking at
people who had died and then they
autopsied their cardiovascular system.
Whereas when we look at the chimanete,
these are going to be living people. So
it's not an applesto apples comparison
per se, but it can give us a rough idea
of what's going on or this is the best
information essentially that we have in
terms of what's going on with these two
different populations in terms of their
overall health, particularly their
cardiovascular health because that's
what the researchers were focused on in
these two papers. So in George man's
studies the population he looked at was
a total of 50 people 50 men actually who
had died. The age was from 10 years old
to 60 years old. Now interestingly most
of the population that had died was less
than 60 years old. And we can see that
we can see where their deaths had come
from. So 15 of these men had died from
combat, 13 from infection, eight of them
from cardiovascular and renal diseases,
six of them from accidents, three of
them from cancers, two of them from an
intestinal instru obstruction, two from
suicide, and one from a diabetic coma.
Now, one thing to keep in mind here,
some of the cardiovascular and renal
deaths that we see here aren't
necessarily from the typical
cardiovascular diseases that we would
see in western populations like coronary
heart disease. These are more infective
diseases like sypholytic heart disease
and things like this. So that's one
thing to keep in mind that makes the you
know just to be fair around the data.
These aren't like your oh they had a
heart attack. They actually didn't find
high amounts of heart attacks in in this
population. We'll talk about their athoscerosis.
athoscerosis.
Now in terms of the Messiah diet,
there's multiple papers that get pulled
together to try to understand it. But I
pull in pulling those papers together um
I have a couple quotes here that we'll
look at. So we have a quote here and
this paper come the paper that pulled
some of these together is the
traditional Messiah dietary practices
and inapplicability to modern carnivore
diets a narrative review. Now the they
first talk about a paper from Bis at all
which I've also read bis's paper but
they summarize it nicely here. They say
Bis at all reported that milk was the
primary dietary staple with men drinking
3 to five lers per day. When milk
supplies dwindled for four to five
months per year during dry seasons, the
Messiah supplemented their diet with
fresh blood mixed into milk. They also
consume large quantities of roasted or
boiled meat from cattle, sheep, or goats
during these times with meals estimated
to include 1.8 to 2.3 kilograms of meat
in a single sitting and 2 to 5 kilograms
of meat on days when cattle are brought
to market as well as celebration days.
So most of the year or at least half the
year the Messiah were subsisting mainly
on milk. When you go through these
studies their milk composition is
actually very different than the milk
composition of the of western cows. They
have a higher fat percentage a higher
cholesterol content and typically a
lower carbohydrate content in their
milk. And then for a portion of the
these years they actually went to a
higher meat intake because of a lack of
supply of milk from the cattle. and they
usually would have the meat from sheep
or goats and they tended to avoid
killing the cattle as much as possible.
So that it's only a portion of the year
that they would have this very high meat
intake which actually counter to the
some of the carnivore narrative where
the diet is actually mainly meat and
some of the concerns talked about in
carnivore diet is like hey don't have
too much dairy. So their diet was mainly
focused on dairy and meat was like the
subsistence food when there wasn't
enough dairy left over. Now, and this
and the other thing to keep in mind,
this was mainly for men. And this was
also mainly for men that were in the mir
cohort. So, the mirin cohort or the
mirin time frame is a time frame with
the Messiah things from like 15 to age
30 somewhere around there where they are
considered the warriors and they only go
on a diet of meat, milk, and blood.
However, when they're younger and then
after that time frame, the diet can be
different than that. It doesn't only
have to be meat, milk, and blood. So,
that's something that's important to
consider. And so I have a next quote
here and we're going to look at what did
the women and children do. So they say
Nestle reported that meat was less
frequently consumed by women and
children typically two to five times per
month depending on the season and
livestock availability. Non-pregant and
lactating women obtained 52% of their
daily daily energy intake from dairy and
maize became an alternative staple and
milk was scarce. However, fruits,
vegetables, and pulses were rarely
eaten. So they would have corn and they
would have they would have milk um for
women and children mainly and there
wasn't as much meat consumption as we
saw with the men. So this is not a
typical carnivore diet. This is actually
kind of more like a somebody doing like
a full pete diet with no carbs, right?
They're they're just doing only having
milk where they're really focusing on
milk. And then in times where there's
not enough milk then they would here
they would the women and children add
corn but the men would typically add um
or would add large quantities of meat.
Now in terms of what the breakdown of
the diet was macro wise we have another
quote here. They say nutrition intake
among the Messiah indicates that the
traditional diet is high in fat and
protein and low in carbohydrates. Early
reports indicated that the adult Messiah
men and women consume between 2,500 and
3,000 calories per day with 33 to 47% of
the energy derived from fat, 27 to 40%
from protein, and 13 to 40% from
carbohydrates. Subsequent investigations
indicated higher fat intakes, closer to
60 to 67% of total calories, and mean
cholesterol intakes of 500 to 2,000
milligrams per day. The mean fatty acid
composition of the diets of adults have
been reported to be approximately 68%
28% and 4% saturated monounsaturated
polyunsaturated fats respectively. So
68% of the diet was saturated fat, 28%
was monounsaturated fat and 4% was
polyunsaturated fat. Um the other things
they say here and this is something
interesting to note about the Messiah is
that even though they were on their
carnivorous diet they um and they had
meat consumption at different periods of
time there was rank nutrient
deficiencies in the population. Now they
also had infections so that's something
to keep in mind but the diet wasn't
sufficient in certain vitamins and
minerals and so they further say the
traditional Messiah diet has also been
reported to be devoid of added salt
meeting requirements to the consumption
of animal blood. Micronutrient analysis
indicated that iron and vitamin C
intakes were low reflected by anemia
prevalence in about 40% of children
under five years of age and 22% in adult
women. So a large percentage of children
and women are actually anemic in this
population. Um and then the the diet
isn't appropriate for certain uh
vitamins and minerals. Now when we look
at this all together, the breakdown of
the Messiah diet, it's about 2,500
calories per day, roughly 2,500 to
3,000. I took the 2,500 here. Men were
probably higher because at the Chamani
cohort that I looked at or the studies
on the Chamani talked about a 2400
calorie intake per day. So we're getting
relatively close comparison in terms of
their calories. Now their macros are
very different. So the Messiah here have
about 13% carbohydrate. So that's going
to be about 80 grams per day. That's
pretty close especially with their
activity levels or their it's at ketoic
levels almost. um you know 50 grams per
day, but their activity level is
massive. We'll see that in a second.
Their fat intake was about 66% fat,
which would be about 183 grams per day
of fat, and it was about 124 grams of
saturated fat, 51 grams of
monounsaturated, and 7 grams of
polyunsaturated. I calculated those off
the total fat intake, the 66% giving me
the 183. And then I took the percentages
that I got from the study, the 68%
saturated, 28% mono, and 4% poly. The
protein intake was about 130 grams per
day. Um, and again, this is from dairy
products and from milk product uh from
the from the meat products. So, this is
what the diet looks like here for the
Messiah. Now, in terms of the Messiah's
physical characteristics, the Messiah
tended to be on the leaner side overall.
Quite a bit on the leaner side. uh from
the man's study they actually showed the
Messiah BMI at least with I'm using from
man's study because I'm going to go
through man's data but the BMI was about
19.4 four kilograms per meter squared.
So they were towards the underweight
category overall. The Messiah actually
had a low blood pressure. So this was
also from the from man's studies say man
at all conducted a cross-sectional study
involving 400 Messiah adolescent boys
and men aed 14 to 55 years who were
recruited from several communities in
the region. Um they basically said the
study used standardized clinical
protocols. Participants were examined
after a resting period and blood
pressure is measured. um and they took
duplicate readings to get to ensure that
they were accurate. Hypertension was
defined using thresholds of systolic
blood pressure greater than 160
millimeters of mercury and diastolic
blood pressure greater than 100. What
they found was that only six men
exhibited blood pressure greater than
160 millimeters of mercury and five had
diastolic readings at or above 100
millimeters of mercury. So most of the
men so out of the 400 Messiah men only
six of them were actually considered
hypertensive hypertensive here. Now 160
on systolic and 100 on diastolic is
pretty um like a there's a a pretty high
bar set there. It could be lower like
the current standards would be if you
were greater than 130 or well you'd be
in pre-hypertensive area but greater
than 140. So this is still this level is
a bit higher but overall we're not
seeing a high amount of hypertension in
this population.
Also something interesting about the
Messiah and why they've been studied so
much is that their cholesterol levels
are typically quite low. So this is a
graphic showing the cholesterol change
in the Messiah um from about 15 years of
age to 65 years of age and the average
cholesterol level was about 135
milligrams per deciliter. So that was
their total which is significantly lower
than the cholesterol levels that you
would typically see in westerners which
they compared here with US males
averaging around 220 somewhere between
220 240 and in US females as they age
going over the 240 mark. So much lower
than western counterparts. Now one thing
that's interesting here and this is a
bit of a tangent. The Messiah actually
have some degree of genetic adaptation
to their diet and they tested this in
different studies. So bis at all tested
this and then man at all had tested
this. Um and basically what they had
found was that the Messiah lower their
production of cholesterol from their
liver in the face of a high dietary
cholesterol intake more so than western
counterparts do. So when the Messiah get
a high amount of cholesterol in the
diet, they drastically decrease their
cholesterol production, which allows
them to keep overall lower lipid levels.
And this is actually something that's
very interesting to consider because it
would indicate that they have some
degree of adaptation to their diet,
which may make this type of eating
pattern not necessarily reproducible in
another population that doesn't have
this adaptation. So that's one thing to
keep in mind here. Now the other thing
is the Messiah were extremely active. So
they had about they had an energy
expenditure here they say of 2500
calories above basil requirements. Um so
this they say here this is approximately
the energy expenditure of running a
marathon. So they had dur and I think
this energy expenditure was largely for
some of the the murin cohort. So the
young men who were a part of the warrior
groups but either way the they looked at
their energy expenditure and it was
quite high overall. And then the Messiah
as I mentioned were also riddled with
infections. They say the Messiah
experienced a high prevalence of
infectious disease and parasitic
infections which significantly
influenced their lipid profiles and
cardiovascular risk. Common diseases
include malaria, tuberculosis, brucyosis
and gastrointestinal parasitic
infections which have been linked to the
consumption of raw meat, milk and blood
as well as poor sanitation and
contaminated water. These infections
contribute to significant morbidity with
malaria affecting up to 35% of African
pastoralis and high reported prevalence
of conditions including diarrhea and
pneumonia among children. So they have
their ancestral diet but they also have
quite a bit of infections. So I'm this
that's the whole profile that's the
whole picture of the Messiah that
they're highly active people. They have
a very highfat very low carbohydrate
diet. They their body weights typically
fall in a lower BMI category. So they
are either underweight or normal weight
and then they also have typically low
cholesterol levels and low blood
pressure. So they don't have high
cardiovascular risk factors from weight,
blood pressure or cholesterol. So the
question is what is their cardiovascular
profile look like? Did they have
aoscerosis? Did they not have
aoscerosis? What are we looking at? So
this is where the man data comes in on
the 50 men that that we looked at. And
so this is from man. Man says the
present data do not confirm either of
bis statements. So bis at all had done a
study on the messiah and said that they
didn't have aoscerosis but that was only
on a population of 10 men an autopsy of
10 men. So man further says we find that
the messiah vessels do not do or we find
that the messiah vessels do show
extensive atheroscerosis. They show
coronary intimal thickening which is
equal to that seen in elderly Americans.
The unique anatomical feature of the
Messiah material is that the coronary
vessels enlarge with age so that the
luminina are not compromised by intimal
thinking. So the in the same paper man
at all says the Messiah don't see very
many heart attacks. They didn't see very
very many heart attacks at least based
on EKGs. However, on the autopsy
information when they're looking at the
hearts of these men uh and the blood
vessels of these men, they actually find
quite a bit of aoscerosis and it's on
par with elderly Americans, elderly
westerners. What they say is that the
vest the interior portion the lumen of
the vessels actually just expands as
they get older so that it's not
compromised by the athoscerosis that
they have. So going on here I pulled
some of the graphics from the paper so
we can actually look and see um what's
going on in terms of their athoscerosis.
So this first graphic here looks so
sudanophilia is a staining technique to
see how much lipids are in the vessels
and we can see the arch thoracic region
abdominal region all regions and this is
of the of the aorta and we can see that
around 30 years of age the mass start to
increase their um start to increase the
amount of lipids present inside their
aortas. So you see a a significant
increase and then that tends to go
upwards as they get older. So there's a
they have a little bit when they're
younger, it decreases till they're 30
and they start to see an increase of
atherosclerosis until they're 60.
Then the next thing we start to see here
is we see the frequency of fibrosis like
high-grade severe fibrosis in the
arteries which would be indicative of
high amounts of atherosclerosis and you
see by for age 40 50 and 60 you're
seeing high amounts at least in these
autopsies of severe fibrosis amongst
these amongst the Messiah which rules
out the idea that they don't get
atheroscerosis because of their
ancestral diet. um they're actually
getting uh significant atherosclerosis.
Now the next graphic that we see here is
they plotted the MSI in terms of the
intimal thickness of their arteries
across their age groups and then they
compared them to a study by young at all
of men aged 60 to 69. So the Messiah in
the at the 50-year age group have almost
similar atheroscerosis or intimal
thickness of their arteries which is a
measure of aththeroscerosis as men in
their 60s to 69 years old in the US. So
their outcomes look arguably a little
bit worse in terms of atheroscerosis
compared to American men at least in
this this uh this manowl study. And then
the last one that we see here is a
comparison of the different vessels. The
left main uh the left anterior
descending the left anterior left
circumflex and then the right circumflex
arteries. Um the amount of intimal
thickness that they see. So we see this
line right here where we see that this
is the from the young at all study for
men aed 60 to 69 for all their vessels.
the Messiah men at age 60 have higher
amounts of atherosclerosis
than the 60 to 69 year old men um from
the US at all at every single point of
their of their coronary arteries. So
they have much higher coronary artery athoscerosis
athoscerosis
at least based on intimal thickness
readings than regular American men. So
basically what we're seeing here with
the Messiah population is that they
actually have quite a bit of aoscerosis.
They have quite a bit of disease here.
And the idea that you kind of get
because I remember I had this as well
like when I was doing the low carb stuff
I was like oh well the Messiah are
healthy. They don't have disease. And
it's like well actually they are having
disease. They are having aoscerosis. So
it I'm not saying that it's necessarily
because of their diet in the sense that
it's like oh the dairy fat is just
causing that but we're seeing an
ancestral population that has been used
as an example of why we should eat a
certain way and we're seeing a high
amount of athoscerosis in this
population. The only there's a caveat to
this analysis that I think is really
important and fair to make. This
analysis was done on 50 Messiah men who
had died from age 10 to 60. So you are
looking at people who had different
infections, different disease processes,
etc. And so you may have selected for a
population that could have like more
would may have been more likely to have
aoscerosis because of some of their
disease processes. But either way,
you're still seeing extensive
aththeroscerosis in the population,
which I think kind of flies in the face
of the idea that these this ancestral
population was super healthy and didn't
have any diseases. Like no, they
actually are having this is a chronic
disease that you're seeing. and they're
just not seeing it in the form of heart
attacks. Part of the reason I chose
these 50 guys or this man study that
looked at these 50 men wasn't to be
unfair per se. It was just that this was
the this was the data that we had,
right? This was the best data that we
had from the 1970s. Some of there's
Messiah now that exist in uh in in Kenya
and they're able to like you can go and
study them but the diet has shifted
compared to these different time frames
with the introduction of different
foods. So it may muddle some of the
water here. So this was one of the best
studies that we had with the the largest
population size and an in-depth look
because the bis at all study there were
some problems with it in terms of how
they determined atheroscerosis in the
men and how they chose their population
whereas the man study is much better
overall larger population etc. Um but so
there's the you may have that
confounding factor in there in terms of
the selection of people who already sick
and but the one other thing I want to
mention here that's really interesting
is the idea that the each of us have
different degrees of tolerating
different dietary components based on
our backgrounds. So sometimes it may not
make sense to say hey like we the
Messiah have this diet and they're
healthy therefore I can do that diet.
When we see something like the Messiah
able to keep low serum cholesterols in
the low serum cholesterol values in the
face of a really high fat intake that's
a really high saturated fat intake and a
really high cholesterol intake as well
that for another population may ramp up
those values pretty significantly and
even with that even despite their low
cholesterol intake they also still had
extensive atherosclerosis at least based
on this data. So this is I think there's
a couple pieces to keep in mind here to
bring some nuance to the overarching
picture. In contrast to the Messiah, the
other population we're going to look at
here is a chimanete. And the chimanete
study was more recent. So I can look at
just one paper to look at this. And
essentially in this study, they looked
at um 705
of these shaman uh Native Americans and
the average age of the population was
about 57.6 years old. Now the chimanete
diet is basically almost polar opposite
to the to the Messiah. And so I have a
quote here. Uh the quote is from the
paper fatty acid composition in mature
milk of Bolivian forager horiculturist
controlled comparisons with the US
sample. So this was another paper that
but it gave a better idea of what the
chamani diet was and what they say here
from previously gathered populationwide
dietary observations. We estimate that
for adult adults aged 20 and older the
average Shimanete diet comprises 74%
plant and 26% animal foods. Locally
cultivated staples like rice, plantain,
cassava or they say manio here and corn
account for 66% of total dietary energy.
Wild and cultivated fruits and nuts 6%
and market foods so crackers, bread,
pasta, sugar 2%. Game meat primarily
species of peckery, taper, capiara and
monkey account for 17% of total dietary
energy. Freshwater fish 7% and beef,
poultry and pork from freeranging
animals 2%. The chaman do not consume
domestic milk or dairy products and eggs
accounts for less than.5% of the diet.
An estimated 14% of average daily energy
is derived from fat. 14% for protein and
72% from carbohydrates. Minimally, the
average adult Chamani diet contains 38
grams of fat per day with 11 grams
saturated fat, 14 grams monounsaturated
fat, and 8 grams polyunsaturated fat.
So, the Chamani's diet's about 2400
calories per day, 72% of its
carbohydrates, so it's about 440 grams
of carbohydrate per day. Then they have
about 14% fat per day, which is 38 grams
per day. and they have about 14% protein
per day, which is about 85 grams per
day. So, their protein intake is lower
than the Messiah. Their fat intake is
significantly lower than the Messiah,
and their carbohydrate intake is
massively higher than the Messiah. If we
compare the two diets, the Messiah uh
the Messiah diet, so you had 183 grams
of fat for the Messiah versus the 38
grams of fat for the Chaman. In terms of
carbohydrate, the Messiah were at 80
grams per day where the Chamani were at
440 grams per day. And we look at the
protein intake. The Messiah were about
130 grams per day and the Chamati were
at 85 grams per day. So it's flipped in
largely flipped in terms carbs of fat.
In terms of carbs and fat composition,
Chamani have a really high carbohydrate
intake. Now, one tangent that I want to
talk about here because this is
something that goes in the comment
section is that if you you can't do a
high carb diet in the wild because you
can't find a large amount of
carbohydrate sources. And that's
actually false. And we can see that here
where you have a population that is
subsisting on a very high carbohydrate
intake, 440 grams per day based on the
calculations that we're getting. Um, so
even if they're off by, you know, say
it's 25 to 30%, you would still see
about a 300 gram carbohydrate intake per
day, which would still be considered
pretty high in general by the low carb
standards. So you can actually have a
high carbohydrate intake on an ancestral
diet. So that's something to keep in
mind. It just depends on where you live.
If you live in the Amazon rainforest or
you live around the equator, you're more
you could get a high carbohydrate
intake. If you're up in the north, you
may have a harder time. So the diets are
again are going to be dependent upon the
different population where they're from.
That's something to keep in mind here.
Now in terms of the chiman's physical
characteristics, the chimani I pulled
out the table here. The chaman in
general had a low this body fat
percentage was average. So was with men
and women here. So the chaman had a
normal body mass index and they didn't
have a high body fat percentage.
Although their BMI and their body fat
percentage was higher than the Messiah
on average, they had normal blood
pressures, there was no hypertension in
any of the age groups. And then the the
Chimane also had um they didn't actually
have perfect lipids. So their apo values
were while they were younger between 40
to about 54 years old they stayed below
the 90 milligram per deciliter target
but as they got older they actually went
over the 90 milligram per deciliter
target where the 55 year old to 74 year
olds were in the hundreds on their apo
and then the 75 the 75 year olds were
around 100 as well. So you're seeing a
higher APOB than is considered ideal by
traditional cardiology practices. And an
APO A1 was actually lower than what
would be considered ideal from like a
standard cardiology sense where you'd
really want it closer at least from some
of the research between 150 and 200
milligrams per deciliter. The other
thing is that Chaman didn't have optimal
oxidized LDL levels. So the 40 to 44
year olds were about 82 units per liter
and then the other the other age groups
were all around seven in the 70s units
per liter. ideal be less than 60 units
per liter. So, their lipid profile was
pretty decent. Um, not significantly
higher than or lower than the Messiah.
Um, and the values weren't necessarily
optimal. And that's the same thing that
goes for some of their inflammatory
markers. So, most of the Chimane had
inflammatory markers that were
significantly higher than what would be
considered ideal. So their CRP values
for all age groups from 40 to 75 plus
years was greater than three which is
not considered an ideal CRP value. Ideal
would be less than one. And then their
ESR values were all greater than 20
millimeters per hour which ideal would
be at least less than 10 um for women
and ideally less than five for men. Plus
they had a higher white blood cell count
and their immune cell counts were higher
on average as well because they had um
multiple parasitic infections in the
population. So what we're seeing with
the chimani normal B B B B B B B B B B B
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B
B B B B B B B B B BMI normal blood
pressure lipids that aren't too far off
from the Messiah. They're about the same
and they're not even ideal lipids and
inflammatory markers that are high. We
don't have the inflammatory markers for
the Messiah, but we do have we had some
of the other metrics. So this is so we
can compare them back and forth. Now the
Messiah were active, but so are the
Chimane. And based on this paper, they
say most of a typical Chimane day
involves the physical activity of
farming, hunting, food preparation,
household chores, and parenting. The
average hunt lasts more than 8 hours and
covers nearly 18 km, which is like like
10 to 11 miles. While horicultural labor
includes using metal axes to chop large
areas of primary forest. Men and women
spend a mean of 6 to 7 hours and 4 to
six hours per day engaging in physical
activity, respectively. Less than 10% of
the chamani daylight hours are spent
engaged in sedentary activity while more
than 54% of waking hours are sedentary
in industrial populations. So the
chamani also were quite active. So you
couldn't say one population was really
massively more active than the other.
They both had higher activity levels
than than your western populations. And
then on top of that the chamani were did
have large amount of infections. So they
say here the chamani like access to
clean water, sewage or electricity. over
twothirds of the adult population suffer
from intestinal helmets at any given
time. So 66% of the population has some
type of intestinal worm or at least the
adult population and that's not even and
in this study what we're going to see is
they did coronary artery calcium scans
on them and what they basically found
was that some of them also had
tuberculosis. So tuberculosis was
present, intestinal helmets were
present. So there's a lot of infections
present in the population. and they just
kind of live with them over time which
also explains the inflammatory burden
that we see in their markers. Now with
the chimani what they did is they went
and they did CAC scores on them so
coronary art calcium scores to see how
much plaque burden they had. And the
reason I chose these two populations is
because we actually have really good
data on their cardiovascular health.
With the Messiah, you have autopsy data
where they basically to opened up the
hearts and the arteries and saw where
the authoroscerosis was. And then for
the chiman here, they actually did
coronary artery calcium scores on living
individuals. So from the paper, what
they say here is we observed a very low
prevalence of coronary arthoscerosis in
the shiman as measured by coronary
artery calcium scoring. 85% so 596 of
the 705 participants had no coronary
artery calcium zero their score was zero
89 people 13% of the participants had a
CAC score lower than 100 and only 3% of
the participants had a CAC score of 100
or higher and keep in mind this is in a
population that average age was 57.6 six
years old. So this is actually really
amazing coronary artery calcium scores.
And so they give us the graphic here
where they compared the chimane to the
MESA cohort. Uh so the study they did
looking at the CAC scores in the US. Um
and basically what you found was on the
bottom here we have the different age
groups and then this this this solid
blue line is for the Chimani. It's CAC
scores greater than 100. And then for
the the red line solid line is Mesa. And
what we basically find is that by age 75
to 84 only 8% of the Chimane population
had a CAC score greater than 100. And
even and down even into the 55 to 64 age
group only 2% of the population had a
CAC score greater than 100. When we look
at the Mesa cohort instead, by 75 to 84
years old, 51% of the population had a
CAC score greater than 100. And even by
55 to 64 years old, 17% of the MESA
cohort had a CAC score greater than 100,
which is still twice the amount of
coronary artery calcium that we're
seeing in 75 to 85 year olds in the
Chimanete group. So essentially what
you're seeing is a significantly higher
amount of coronary artery calcium in the
in the mesa group and the jamani group
is exceptionally low and we actually
have comparison to other population. So
they go on to say here the researchers
say coronary artery calcium scores are
normally two to four times higher in men
than women. Although chamani men had
higher CAC scores than chaman women a
finding more prominent in the older
population. Jamani men had lower CAC
scores than Japanese women, a population
previously regarded as having the lowest
CAC scores reported of any ethnicity. So
when we look at the this is a graph
comparing the CAC scores of different
populations. So you have men on the or
women on the top, men on the bottom, and
you have US uh US men, US white men, US
black men, US Hispanic men, European
men, Korean men, Chinese men, Japanese
men, and then chamani men. And you have
those same groups for the women. And
what you find is in both groups, we can
see here this little blue line at the
absolute bottom, the chaman have the
lowest CAC scores of all the populations
combined. And again, even lower than
Japanese women, which were considered to
have the lowest level of or the lowest
CAC scores on average um of all the
groups combined. So we can see that the
cardiovascular risk in the chiman is
massively lower. Um and that's in this
flies in comparison to the Messiah who
had basically
um corroted arterial intimal thickness
levels that were comparable to western
men and the the the 50-year-olds in the
Messiah group had aththeroscerosis
levels that were comparable to
60-year-olds in the West. So it's a big
you know you have these two diets. You
have a really highfat dairy and
meat-based diet entirely for the Messiah
to a large extent. And then you have the
Chiman who they do have meat. It's not a
vegan diet, but they their diet is
higher in carbohydrate. And you have one
group that has extensive
aththeroscerosis. And then you have
another group who has the lowest amount
of atheroscerosis seen of any population
so far. So it's a really huge difference
when you look at these two different
groups. And again, both of them are
huntergatherer um ancestrally living
populations. So the chiman are an
example that kind of flies in the face
of some of the low carb ideology where
it's like oh you can't get enough carbs
or you know the the these populations
that were low carb were super healthy
and I'm going to make a video on the
Eskimos so you know that's coming. So
basically you can see the the different
dynamics here. We get to compare and
contrast the populations. I want to make
it clear here again. It's not a perfect
comparison, right? you only have 50
people with the Messiah where you had
700 people with the chimanete and then
the chim the Messiah individuals were
autopsies. These were CAC's. So you
could have some selection bias based on
this. They're not randomized uh they're
not randomized selection for the
participants. So just things to keep in
mind, but it's the best data we have
right now to compare these these
different populations. So with that, now
that I've showed you the two different
ancestral populations, their diets and
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